Florida State recruiting: A look back at the Seminoles' lost class of 2007

While many college football teams this season will use members of their 2007 recruiting classes as a foundation, less than half that class remains at Florida State.

August 18, 2010|by Andrew Carter, Orlando Sentinel

TALLAHASSEE — Some of the best football players from the graduating high school class of 2007 have already moved on to the NFL. Alabama's Rolondo McClain, winner of the Butkus Award a season ago. Florida's Maurkice Pouncey. Notre Dame's Jimmy Clausen.

College football programs around the country, though, will this fall rely on what remains from their 2007 recruiting classes to provide production and leadership. Those players will be seniors, or redshirt juniors. They will often represent the foundation of a team.

But not here at Florida State. Four years after 20 members of the class of 2007 signed national letters of intent to play for the Seminoles, just nine of those players will play for the Seminoles this season. And of those nine, only four position players are likely to start. The ones who left did not depart early to play in the NFL, like McClain or Pouncey or Clausen.

They left instead because they were unsatisfied with playing time. Or because they were hurt. Some never even arrived at all. At Florida State, the 2007 class has mostly been a lost class — one once filled with promise, at least according to the recruiting experts, only to fall apart.

"Most people think it's strange," said Rodney Hudson, the Florida State senior guard who has been the most successful member of the Seminoles' 2007 class. "But they say every year once we come in, everybody won't make it. It's turned out to be true."

Earlier this week, Dionte Allen became the latest defection from Florida State's lost class. Allen arrived here a touted high school cornerback, a four-star prospect and the second-best high school player in Michigan, according to Rivals.com. He left after having started just one game in three seasons.

Allen wasn't expected to play a large role at Florida State in 2010. He likely would have fought for scraps of playing time behind Greg Reid, a sophomore who is expected to start.

Still, Allen's departure further diminishes the Seminoles' number of upperclassmen. In addition, it's another clear indication the Seminoles in recent seasons have embraced a youth movement.

"You don't have to be old to be a leader," Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher said earlier this week, discounting the notion that a lack of upperclassmen might cost his team the intangible of leadership.

The reasons for the failure of the 2007 class are many. For one, four players never even arrived on campus. Three others later left after problems with injuries. Other players seemed to be lost in subsequent years as additional recruiting classes arrived.

The '07 class might have been doomed from the start given that Florida State was a program in flux late in 2006 and early in 2007. Those were the final days for former offensive coordinator Jeff Bowden and other Seminoles' assistants. Fisher and a mostly-new offensive coaching staff arrived in January and had little time to recruit.

Hudson, who had been a West Virginia commitment, followed former Mountaineers offensive line coach Rick Trickett to Tallahassee. Fisher, meanwhile, persuaded talented receiver Taiwan Easterling to sign with the Seminoles after national signing day. In addition to those two, only receiver Bert Reed, linebacker Kendall Smith and punter Shawn Powell have been regular starters from the '07 class.

Easterling said he was attracted to Florida State only because of Fisher.

"My high school coach had always talked about him … told me the track record, what type of coach he was and I [felt] like that's somebody that's going to get me better," Easterling said. "A coach I wanted to be coached by."

If anything, the '07 class at Florida State provides further proof of how unpredictable recruiting can be — a valuable reminder given the excitement top recruit James Wilder Jr. created on Wednesday when he announced his intentions to play at Florida State. The Seminoles' '07 class didn't feature a player as touted as Wilder is now, but it did include enough talent to be ranked by Rivals.com among the top 25 classes in the nation.

Four years later, though, Fisher has a difficult time remembering the first class he helped build at Florida State .

"I don't even know who's still in that class," he said earlier this week. "I'd have to go back and look at it."